If there’s something better than playing Vintage at an outdoor bar in March in Austin, we haven’t experienced it. Apparently our local Magic players agree: 32 players came out for RTS32, making this our biggest paper Vintage event to date! It’s hard to overstate how much this means. We’re five years into Romancing The Stones, we’ve seen players relocate to other states, dramatic power creep, card prices increase, a pandemic that drove people away, etc etc, so to suddenly break our own attendance record and have a truly big tournament is heartening. And there’s also the innocent joy that we had 32 players for RTS32 on 3/23!

In addition to the great turnout, we had a few notable innovations and surprises. Rob Connolly continues to push the envelop on our stream capabilities, and set up a mobile recording station! We recorded a match each round, which we plan to edit and release. Likewise, John Thomas created a custom card in honor of the coming eclipse: Total Solar Eclipse!

This was our first event since the Ponder unrestriction, so it was interesting see what folks could do with 4 of them (spoiler: not much). It was a rough day for Dredge and, compared to its dominance in our last couple events, a weaker day for Jewel Shops. Piloting on the other end of the strategy spectrum, Houston Shops guru Ben Kendrick played Golos all the way to first!

We don’t have a specific date for RTS33 yet, but after the incredible day we want to build on that momentum and have it soon!

  1. Ben Kendrick – Golos Shops
  2. Chris Huckabee – Atraxa Oath
  3. Stuart Ziarnik – Engineer PO
  4. Brian Tweedy – Esper Lurrus
  5. Lee Webb – UB Lurrus
  6. Sean Soderman – Jewel Shops
  7. Tanner Hogan – White Initiative
  8. Doug Matus – BUG Control
  9. Patrick Vincent – Doomday
  10. Curt Christian – Beseech The Mirror
  11. Nick Patniyot – Atraxa Oath
  12. Robin Mannas – Goblins
  13. Bobby Scheidemann – Jewel Shops
  14. Rob Connolly – 8Cast
  15. Fred Chapman – Jewel Shops
  16. Colin Logan – UB Lurrus
  17. Paul Garrett – Esper Lurrus
  18. Kai Schafroth – Breach PO
  19. Ian Files – 4C Control
  20. Seth Nowlin – UW Dreadnought
  21. Satish Subramanian – Jewel Shops
  22. John Thomas – UG Merfolk
  23. Brandon Sikes – Jewel Shops
  24. Liz Garcia – Dredge
  25. Keith Sweeney – White Initiative
  26. Justin Bruce – Jewel Shops
  27. Jeffrey DeMario – Dredge
  28. Brian Espinoza - Dredge
  29. Ryan Bartley – RUG Planeswalkers
  30. Patrick Little – BUG Control
  31. Alvaro Silva – Dredge
  32. Marie Oak – White Initiative